If you can stand the noise of the engine from outside then go with the diesel. The N47 diesel engines so far hasn't had any issues. Within our group we have those with the E90 320d which has >100,000km mileage on them and no major issues. Normal maintenance is per standard using 5W-30 or 5W-40 engine oil. Don't need to change sparkplugs and generally, diesel engines last quite long. The difference with Euro 2M and now Euro 5M can be seen here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards). Mostly sulphur content.

Benefits of diesel versus petrol, you get good fuel consumption and most of the guys in our group when driving pure highway drives, they can achieve >1000km mileage on a single tank. Last one hitting 1134km. On average you get around 700-800km in pure city traffic jam driving.

The downside to diesel is that it has low RPM and usually runs out of breath at higher speeds. If you are the type that prefers to drive normally with the little bit of excitement in terms of spirited acceleration, then the diesel would be good. Otherwise the 320i would be just as good.

If you can't stand the noise, best to not go for it. Sometimes I do ask myself that same question. Go with your heart and not what the rest thinks.

Actually it is really up to you, most of the time people can normally service it every 10,000km but I know people who service after every 5,000km

Thanks for the tips bro. Yeah that is a good analogy to put it.